v3.5.1 – Fix long-form TTS drift (dd_tts chunking)

Patch: backing TTS long-form fix

Fixes cloned-voice audio (dd_tts, en_GB + bella) turning to garbage after
~1 minute on long digests.

Cause: the digest is one long (~430-word) paragraph, which the Qwen3-TTS
service synthesised in a single continuous generate call. Voice-clone quality
collapses past ~1 minute of audio.

Fix (in the self-hosted Qwen3-TTS service, ai-proxmox): sentence/clause-aware
length chunking (default 320 chars/chunk, over-long sentences word-wrapped),
concatenated with a small natural gap between chunks (paragraph breaks keep the
larger paragraph_pause). Each generate call now stays well under the drift
threshold. Tunable via TTS_MAX_CHARS_PER_CHUNK / TTS_INTRA_CHUNK_PAUSE_S.

Verified: the full digest now renders clean end to end (~12 chunks). Today's
audio was regenerated and republished to audionews.uk.

Note: no code change in this repo since v3.5.0 — this documents the
backing-service fix that the daily digest depends on.

v3.5.0 – Self-hosted Qwen3-TTS (dd_tts) replaces ElevenLabs

Summary

Replaces ElevenLabs with a self-hosted Qwen3-TTS service (dd_tts) for the
English digests, moves digest generation onto a self-hosted LAN runner, and
hardens the CI image and scheduling. ElevenLabs is fully retired.

TTS providers

• en_GB + bella → dd_tts (self-hosted Qwen3-TTS, Alex's cloned neutral voice).
• pl_PL → edge_tts (Polish neural voice).
• New dd_tts provider in digest/tts.py (bearer POST → fetch WAV → transcode to MP3),
  with a per-voice dd_style and a style-mismatch boundary guard.
• Health preflight with automatic edge_tts fallback so the digest still ships if the
  TTS service is unavailable.

Infrastructure

• Digest generate jobs run on a self-hosted runner on the ai-tools LAN box, reaching
  the local TTS directly via host.docker.internal:8200 (no Cloudflare) and using a
  residential IP. merge/deploy stay on GitHub-hosted; tests.yml (fork PRs) stays
  GitHub-hosted so untrusted PRs never touch the runner.
• Pre-digest watchdog (runner-watchdog.yml) at 04:40 UTC probes the box /health
  over the tunnel and opens/closes a GitHub issue if it is unreachable before the 05:00 run.
• Optional public endpoint https://tts.dynamicdevices.co.uk (bearer-gated) + self-serve web UI.

CI image (dynamicdevices/audionews-digest)

• Added curl; pinned edge-tts>=7.2.0,<8.0.0 (old <7.0.0 resolved to 6.1.19, which hit a
  Microsoft 403). Rebuilt and pushed as latest + 20260719.

Verified

End-to-end production run green: en_GB/bella via dd_tts (cloned voice), pl_PL via
edge_tts, merged and deployed to audionews.uk.

🎧 Daily AI News Digest - 2026_03_07

🤖 AI-Enhanced News Digest
📅 Generated:

🎯 Features

• ✅ Claude 4.5 Sonnet AI analysis
• ✅ Multi-source UK news synthesis
• ✅ Premium TTS (ElevenLabs / Edge)
• ✅ WhatsApp-ready MP3 format
• ✅ Copyright-compliant synthesis
• ✅ Accessible newspaper website

📥 Access Options

• 🌐 Website: Daily News Digest
• Audio: per-language MP3 (en_GB_, pl_PL_, bella_ prefixed)
• Text: Full transcript with sources

Perfect for visually impaired users! 🎧♿

🎧 Daily AI News Digest - 2026_03_06

🤖 AI-Enhanced News Digest
📅 Generated:

🎯 Features

• ✅ Claude 4.5 Sonnet AI analysis
• ✅ Multi-source UK news synthesis
• ✅ Premium TTS (ElevenLabs / Edge)
• ✅ WhatsApp-ready MP3 format
• ✅ Copyright-compliant synthesis
• ✅ Accessible newspaper website

📥 Access Options

• 🌐 Website: Daily News Digest
• Audio: per-language MP3 (en_GB_, pl_PL_, bella_ prefixed)
• Text: Full transcript with sources

Perfect for visually impaired users! 🎧♿

🎧 Daily AI News Digest - 2026_03_05

🤖 AI-Enhanced News Digest
📅 Generated:

🎯 Features

• ✅ Claude 4.5 Sonnet AI analysis
• ✅ Multi-source UK news synthesis
• ✅ Premium TTS (ElevenLabs / Edge)
• ✅ WhatsApp-ready MP3 format
• ✅ Copyright-compliant synthesis
• ✅ Accessible newspaper website

📥 Access Options

• 🌐 Website: Daily News Digest
• Audio: per-language MP3 (en_GB_, pl_PL_, bella_ prefixed)
• Text: Full transcript with sources

Perfect for visually impaired users! 🎧♿

v3.4.0 – ElevenLabs for en_GB, force regeneration fix

Highlights

• ElevenLabs TTS for en_GB – en_GB digest now uses ElevenLabs (config + CI override). pl_PL and bella keep Edge TTS with distinct voices.
• Force regeneration fixed – Added --force-regenerate so when you trigger the workflow with "Force regeneration" the script actually regenerates instead of skipping because today's files already exist.
• CI reliability – Sync step uses fetch + reset instead of pull --rebase (eliminates "cannot pull with rebase: uncommitted changes" error). Generated audio is backed up before sync and restored so new audio is always committed.
• CI cleanup – Removed push trigger and deploy_only input; workflow runs on schedule and manual dispatch only. Clearer TTS logging in workflow and script.

Technical

• scripts/github_ai_news_digest.py: --force-regenerate, --tts-provider override, ElevenLabs generation with chunking.
• config/voice_config.json: en_GB tts_provider: elevenlabs, per-language elevenlabs_voice_id.
• .github/workflows/daily-news-digest.yml: ELEVENLABS_API_KEY, force-regenerate passthrough, fetch+reset, backup/restore, no push trigger.

🎧 Daily AI News Digest - 2026_03_04

🤖 AI-Enhanced News Digest
📅 Generated:

🎯 Features

• ✅ Claude 4.5 Sonnet AI analysis
• ✅ Multi-source UK news synthesis
• ✅ Irish Emily Neural voice (premium quality)
• ✅ WhatsApp-ready MP3 format
• ✅ Copyright-compliant synthesis
• ✅ Accessible newspaper website

📥 Access Options

• 🌐 Website: Daily News Digest
• Audio: news_digest_ai_*.mp3 - Ready for WhatsApp sharing
• Text: news_digest_ai_*.txt - Full transcript with sources

Perfect for visually impaired users! 🎧♿

🎧 Daily AI News Digest - 2026_03_03

🤖 AI-Enhanced News Digest
📅 Generated:

🎯 Features

• ✅ Claude 4.5 Sonnet AI analysis
• ✅ Multi-source UK news synthesis
• ✅ Irish Emily Neural voice (premium quality)
• ✅ WhatsApp-ready MP3 format
• ✅ Copyright-compliant synthesis
• ✅ Accessible newspaper website

📥 Access Options

• 🌐 Website: Daily News Digest
• Audio: news_digest_ai_*.mp3 - Ready for WhatsApp sharing
• Text: news_digest_ai_*.txt - Full transcript with sources

Perfect for visually impaired users! 🎧♿

🎧 Daily AI News Digest - 2026_03_02

🤖 AI-Enhanced News Digest
📅 Generated:

🎯 Features

• ✅ Claude 4.5 Sonnet AI analysis
• ✅ Multi-source UK news synthesis
• ✅ Irish Emily Neural voice (premium quality)
• ✅ WhatsApp-ready MP3 format
• ✅ Copyright-compliant synthesis
• ✅ Accessible newspaper website

📥 Access Options

• 🌐 Website: Daily News Digest
• Audio: news_digest_ai_*.mp3 - Ready for WhatsApp sharing
• Text: news_digest_ai_*.txt - Full transcript with sources

Perfect for visually impaired users! 🎧♿

🎧 Daily AI News Digest - 2026_03_01

🤖 AI-Enhanced News Digest
📅 Generated:

🎯 Features

• ✅ Claude 4.5 Sonnet AI analysis
• ✅ Multi-source UK news synthesis
• ✅ Irish Emily Neural voice (premium quality)
• ✅ WhatsApp-ready MP3 format
• ✅ Copyright-compliant synthesis
• ✅ Accessible newspaper website

📥 Access Options

• 🌐 Website: Daily News Digest
• Audio: news_digest_ai_*.mp3 - Ready for WhatsApp sharing
• Text: news_digest_ai_*.txt - Full transcript with sources

Perfect for visually impaired users! 🎧♿